


The Good Year

by TwoForATable (AliSimAlice)



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Ethan never aged, F/M, Family, Romance, modern-day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 13:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliSimAlice/pseuds/TwoForATable
Summary: January, 2017. Ethan Chandler has returned after over a century running away from London and England altogether and he may find that time passes, cities grow, but some things simply stay the same - even though the cards keep telling him that this year should be different.This is something that has been on my mind for a while, as surreal as it might turn out. Follows series' unfortunate canon.





	The Good Year

He pedaled his way through the damp streets of the neighborhood—the cold rain having passed momentarily—the night pitch black if not for the few streetlights. As was expected his cheeks were red and cold—like they could fall off—from this ungodly whether he swore he should already have gotten used to and to top it all off, the wind had fogged up the lenses of his glasses. He made a sudden stop, but his shoe glided on the wet pavement and he almost stumbled off the sidewalk straight into the middle of the busy street. Drivers honked and snickered at the grown-ass man making a fool of himself. He stood and looked around, a hand gripping the handle of his bicycle.

 

He found himself facing the tree of his neighboring building, only a few steps from the entrance of his tiny little townhouse—the little barn as the neighbors called it. He tried to clean the lenses of his glasses before he went in, knowing very well that inside chaos would await him. He could do with a cigarette just about now, and perhaps a pint or two of some fine scotch. Then, of course, he heard the dogs begin to bark, and saw the golden lights go on in the parlor through the window-curtains.

 

2017 and _this_ was his life.

 

The front door pulled open before he even managed to search his pockets for keys and there stood the deeply frowning silhouette of a young woman dressed in thick flannel pajamas, arms crossed, leaning on the wooden frame.

 

“You do realize that I just missed the last train and I have mid-term exams early in the morning.” She didn’t raise her voice, but that didn’t surprise him, she had always been more keen on the infallible cold-shoulder technique and that look of disapproval in those weak-tea colored eyes. What he’d never get used to, however, was how she constantly tried to parent him while it should be the other way around. He blamed it on the fact that she was a textbook Virgo and that 141 years of age was far too young to become a father, let alone a single one… but still, it made him feel as though in some ways he’d failed her.

 

“Sorry kiddo, the rain got me held up, my phone battery went dead… The full moon decided to come out.” With the last comment, her gaze slightly shifted and just a tiny bit of sympathy appeared.

 

“I-I’m sorry dad… I didn’t even think of checking the skies. Anyway, kid’s asleep.” She sighed and let him in, hauling bike and all. She watched with that sorry look that children at some point look onto their parents with—how it’s a pity they are growing old and are only just shadows of who they were. He pretended not to see.

 

He slipped out of coat, shoes and scarf, and made a beeline for the lit fireplace, rubbing his hands together for quicker warmth.

 

“Once a cowboy…” She said with a chuckle. He smiled a little at that and pulled her in for a hug with an arm. “I worry about you, daddy. I worry you’re here just with a four-year-old all the time and you have no adult to make you company while I’m gone.”

 

“I raised you by myself, Beatrice, don’t forget that.” And just like that she knew his walls and defenses were up again.

 

“It’s different; we weren’t living in London then.” No, he thought, they were living anywhere but here… And they both knew very well why.

 

……

 

Six in the morning as he woke up, hair tousled from sleep and a weeks’ worth of beard grooming due, he arrived downstairs for Beatrice to be gone. A note sat on the center of the wooden table with her neat cursive writing letting him know that she had got on the 4 o’clock train and left for university, all the way in France. Oh, and with a P.S. that said there was fresh black coffee in the thermos bottle and cinnamon rolls needing only fifteen minutes in the electric oven.

 

He poured the rich dark liquid into his favorite, chipped blue mug and drank as he looked out the window onto the street. Just everyday people beginning to go about their everyday lives. Mothers waking their little ones, newspapers being delivered, a car engine here or there beginning to roar and then disappearing around the corner. He wondered for a moment when he himself had become one of them—a once traveler, adventurer, vampire-slaying, witch-defeating, unbeatable con man, now limited to _this_. And _this_ , well, when he had briefly imagined it eons ago, it had nothing of similar. It wasn’t so lonely, so cold and so… now.

 

“Daddy, I’m hungry…” He heard the faint little voice say from behind him. Well, it wasn’t all bad.

 

He fetched his dark-haired little monster from the ground and spun her around in the air, eliciting giggles and squeals of delight. He halted and hugged her to him, taking in the divine scent of baby as it was already beginning to fade.

 

“All right Miss Clara, let’s eat.” He concocted some coffee with milk, as it was what she had grown used to and produced a slice of buttered bread on a bright orange plate. She climbed into her designated chair, with a tall cushion on top so that she could reach and smiled. “So, will it be half a pear, half an apple or… plums?”

 

“Plums! Of course plums, they’re the only ones not boring!” She cried.

 

“And the only ones that’ll stain your pajamas.” Clara attempted at rolling her eyes as she bit into her breakfast, but failed adorably. “I think the cinnamon rolls are about ready. Want one, kid?” He put on an oven mitt, removed the tray from the tiny oven and set them on the table—the rich and heavenly smell filling their small kitchen.

 

“ _Hmm_ , yes please.” He chuckled—kid really had an appetite.

 

…..

 

He pulled out a cigarette as soon as she was in kindergarten for the day and decided to walk home, there was much to think of now that he was back. London had grown impossibly with the years and even old Notting Hill was different—what with all the middle-class hipsters, cafés, colorful houses, antique shops and whatnot. He couldn’t take his mind off the fact that he could not find her grave. The old church still stood, to his surprise, but her tombstone was nowhere to be found—not even Sir Malcolm’s, as though they had only existed in his vivid imagination.

 

So much time had passed and though he couldn’t remember anymore every detail of her face or pinpoint the exact shade of blue of her eyes, once in a while, midst the sea of people that populated every city he had lived in. He could swear he saw her figure or her raven hair against pale skin in the middle of a crowd; or heard her velvety, hoarse laughter or felt the very rich scent that was unique to her. It was his greatest flaw—trying to find this someone who he had loved and lost so many years ago. Most of all, his problem was trying to find her within the several women who had entered and exited his life throughout the years. This sensation, of no one else ever comparing or quite fitting, the feeling that something was always missing… it was the cross he was destined to carry.

 

As he passed by the tiny bookstore at the beginning of his street he heard a familiar voice—but from where and when?—call from behind him, breathless from trying to keep up with his pace. So he suddenly halted, his thoughts interrupted, shrunken cigarette thrown to the ground and stepped on.

 

“Mr. Chandler!”

 

 


End file.
